


How it Happens

by sarcasticsra



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Drabble Collection, F/F, F/M, Inspired by Music, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-20
Updated: 2015-11-20
Packaged: 2018-05-02 11:51:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 1,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5247248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarcasticsra/pseuds/sarcasticsra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of Critical Role drabbles featuring every pairing I could think of, inspired by music.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. "Rehearsal" (Gilmore/Vax)

**Author's Note:**

> This is the standard 'set your music player on shuffle and write to whatever pops up' meme as applied to Critical Role and as many pairings as popped into my head the other night at one AM, lol. Thanks to Kelly for the SPAG beta and to vaxleth for a characterization look over. Very appreciated!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _I wanna see you strut (strut, strut)_   
>  _C'mon walk for me_   
>  _Strut (strut, strut)_   
>  _How you wanna be_   
>  **\--Strut, Adam Lambert**

There’s something freeing here, in talking to Gilmore, being in his presence. That might seem strange to most, given how calculated their interactions can be, but it’s true nonetheless.

“Vax’ildan.” Gilmore says his full name with a coy smile, the light in his eyes a promise of distant heat. 

“Gilmore,” he responds in kind, smoky, borrowed embers of the same slow burn. This is a freedom, not just a game; an even matchup, a meeting of similar minds.

They’ve both got their parts to play, true, but Vax is pretty sure he and Gilmore are working with the same script.


	2. "Mistakes" (Keyleth/Vax)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Let's say we try to get this right_   
>  _Said the plutocrat to Jesus Christ_   
>  **\--Robin Hood in Reverse, Bad Religion**

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed this about me,” Vax is saying, and Keyleth isn’t sure she’s ever seen him this drunk, “but I am an enormous fuck-up.”

“Um,” says Keyleth. “I… I don’t think that’s quite true, Vax.”

“One of the things I l-like about you,” he says, just the barest hint of a stutter before _like_ to indicate that he might have almost said another word. “With anyone else, I drunkenly babble about being the fuck-up I am, they’d just agree with me.”

“You’re no more a fuck-up than the rest of us,” she adds, meeting his eyes.


	3. "Mercy" (Vax/Percy)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Maybe it's too true to handle_   
>  _Your willing addiction_   
>  _And feeling a tiny confliction_   
>  _It's scrawled on your face_   
>  **\--Turn Me On, SHeDAISY**

It starts that night in the underdark and grows from there. Stolen kisses, quiet moments, few words, because neither of them know what this is, and neither of them are very good at it even if they did.

And then it… slows.

Percy is good at mechanics and machines, less good with people, but he can still tell when someone is withdrawing. He can tell when feelings are conflicted, blurred.

Their conversation in the tunnel outside what will be his biggest reckoning sharpens it all into focus: _I would expect no less._

( _Of someone who might love me_ , left unsaid.)


	4. "Hope" (Percy/Keyleth)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Seeds of rebellion lay outside your front door_   
>  _If you nourish them and water them they'll grow into a healthy "what for?"_   
>  _And if revolution isn't what's in store, how can you care anymore?_   
>  **\--The Resist Stance, Bad Religion**

Keyleth gives him a look that stops him cold for a moment. It’s intense and warm and crystalline and knowing all at once, and she says quietly, “You haven’t dragged us into anything.”

And he laughs, a little hysterically, because hysteria comes easy to him these days, but before he can speak she’s looking at him again, steadily, clearly, like she can see right through him. For a moment he believes (hopes) that she can. He would like to be seen.

“You haven’t dragged _me_ into anything,” she says, and he thinks maybe she sees more than he’s ever realized.


	5. "Fear" (Percy/Vex)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Sometimes the curiosity can kill the soul but leave the pain_   
>  _And every ounce of innocence is left inside her brain_   
>  _And through the looking glass we see she's painfully returned_   
>  _But now off with her head I fear is everyone's concern_   
>  **\--Her Name Is Alice, Shinedown**

Vex is a whirlwind of caring and intensity. She’s worried about him--everyone’s worried about him, _he’s_ worried about him--and that draws her in. He wants her to be drawn in.

“Darling, try not to scare me so much next time,” she says, forcing a casualness even he can tell she doesn’t really feel. Percy is surprised how much it aches, that _darling_ , even knowing that it’s an honorific she bestows upon nearly everyone. 

Pike asks him if part of him wants to hold onto whatever darkness this is. Maybe he does. 

Maybe it’s for reasons other than vengeance.


	6. "Basic" (Kima/Grog)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _She's a woman at heart and a man on a mission_   
>  _A saint to purify the human condition_   
>  _She's a fortune teller, but she's never gonna tell_   
>  _There's a worm in the bottom of a dead wishing well_   
>  **\--A Woman’s Work, SHeDAISY**

Grog’s motives are… refreshingly simple, Kima realizes.

It takes a minute. Interpersonal relationships never were her strong suit. It was why she was drawn to her current path in life, doing the work she does. It’s often solitary, the way she likes it.

She initially suspects trickery, but she is, she admits, prone to suspicion, and it quickly becomes apparent that Grog has no inclination toward that kind of falsehood.

He wants her because she’s an accomplished warrior, nothing more, nothing less. Nothing about him screams her ideal, but she has to admit that sort of straight-forward thinking is…

Tempting.


	7. "Rough" (The Siren/Grog)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Oh, do you know what you got into?_   
>  _Can you handle what I'm 'bout to do?_   
>  _'Cause it's about to get rough for you_   
>  _I'm here for your entertainment_   
>  **\--For Your Entertainment, Adam Lambert**

“Heard you were looking for me,” she says, taking the pint of ale he’s holding out of his hand and taking a long swig. She grins, teeth bared, as she hands it back. “Now that you’ve found me, what are you going to do?”

Grog’s grin is feral. The bartender who was on his way over to ask them if they needed another stops dead in his tracks.

“Oh, I got a few ideas,” he says.

(The bed is broken in three places the next morning, and half his body is covered in bruises. He can’t wait to tell Scanlan.)


	8. "Destiny" (Pike/Scanlan)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _One anchor turns and faces the other_   
>  _Says it's time that I made you my lover_   
>  _Oooh we belong together_   
>  _Like traffic and weather_   
>  _Like traffic and weather_   
>  **\--Traffic and Weather, Fountains of Wayne**

It ought to annoy her, Pike thinks occasionally, how certain Scanlan is that the two of them will end up together. She feels like that’s something she’s not supposed to put up with. Vex wouldn’t, she’s sure. Neither would Keyleth. 

It doesn’t annoy her, though. It’s a constant, a bright, strong thread twining its way through her life, as steady as her holy symbol (and steadier, during her crisis of faith.) She’s not sure she’d quite know what to do without it.

Maybe that doesn’t quite prove Scanlan right, but she supposes it does mean that he’s not necessarily wrong.


	9. "Absence" (Kima/Allura)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _But we are two worlds apart_   
>  _Can't reach to your heart_   
>  _When you say_   
>  _That I want it that way_   
>  **\--I Want It That Way, Backstreet Boys**

It’s better this way.

Kima tells herself this as she leaves Emon again for yet another mission, one that will keep her away for who knows how long. Longer than she was gone previously, she imagines. It will keep her busy, keep her engaged. It will keep her from thinking of the past.

It’s better this way.

Allura tells herself this as she watches Kima leave, trying to keep the supportive smile on her face. She wants Kima to be happy, and this is what will make her happy, to be away from Emon, away from distractions...

Away from her.


	10. "Solitude" (Allura/Tiberius)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Shed some light on me_   
>  _And hold me up in disbelief_   
>  _And shed some light on me_   
>  _And tell me something that I'll believe in_   
>  **\--Shed Some Light, Shinedown**

She cries.

She finds out the truth about the old woman’s death and tries as hard as she can to understand what was going through Tiberius’ mind that night--and she cries, quietly, to herself, alone in her room where no one save she and her pillows will ever know.

She feels guilty, afterward, like she had no right to her tears. It’s true, she supposes. She had no claim, no cause, no actual reason to feel like she was somehow betrayed, because certainly Tiberius owed her nothing.

She wipes her eyes, trying not to think of it as heartbreak.


	11. "Freedom" (Keyleth/Kashaw)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Hey, good girl (hey, good girl)_   
>  _You got a heart of gold_   
>  _You want a white wedding_   
>  _And a hand you can hold_   
>  **\--Good Girl, Carrie Underwood**

She’s young. She’s inexperienced. She’s, in many ways, Vox Machina’s moral compass. 

But then Kashaw kisses her and for one blissful, sizzling moment, she’s none of the above: she’s wildfire, burning through a forest, destruction and creation in her wake; she’s strong as stone, rough and hardened and able to stand the test of time; she’s a typhoon, the rage and passion of waters scorned; she’s a woman, a girl, a beast, a warrior, all wrapped up in one.

She’s everything, _potential_ , coiled and ready to release. She’s nothing, no one’s expectations but her own.

For a moment, she’s free.


	12. "Defrost" (Zahra/Vex)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Tinker Bell says, and I find I agree_   
>  _You have to break rules if you want to break free_   
>  _So do as you like--we're determined to be_   
>  _Wicked girls saving ourselves_   
>  **\--Wicked Girls, Seanan McGuire**

Their conversation during their shared watch is one Vex’ahlia won’t soon forget. It flits through her mind like so many possibilities: what could happen next?

Zahra was immediately a rival, then a compatriot, quickly a friend, and what might she easily become after that? It’s a heady, dangerous thought to consider, and Vex is nothing if not good at protecting herself from danger.

(She’s pretty sure even Vax sometimes thinks she’s got ice in her veins, but she prefers to keep up that fiction. Ice is far easier to control than fire, and fire once unleashed can become quite unquenchable.)


	13. "Sunshine" (Vax/Keyleth/Percy)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _If I'm brave and if I'm bold_   
>  _I can challenge what's forbidden_   
>  _For nobody gets to tell me_   
>  _That I'll never be the one_   
>  _When they ask you what befell me_   
>  _Say my story is not done_   
>  **\--My Story Is Not Done, Seanan McGuire**

Keyleth figures it out first. 

(Vax will argue, but Percy won’t have any of it: “I knew I wanted you both _first_ ,” he’ll say, and Percy will respond, dryly, “And you handled it in such a mature, thoughtful manner.”)

She brings them together--they’re all bad at this, but she refuses to let that beat them. She refuses to let this wither in the shadows: sunlight, the best disinfectant.

(“But _technically_ ,” Vax will continue, and Percy will roll his eyes and Keyleth will steal a kiss from them both, smiling the serene way one does when they know they’ve won.)


End file.
